Jakarta Bloodshed Spotlights Rise of IS Affiliate in Southeast Asia

Agence France-Presse

15 January 2016

The deadly Paris-style attack in Jakarta has thrown a spotlight on a shadowy Southeast Asian faction of the Islamic State group and offers new evidence of the spread of IS franchises.

Under growing pressure in Iraq and Syria from the US-led bombing campaign, the extremist group is spreading its tentacles, metastasising into new regions.

The IS group already has affiliates in Libya and Nigeria, and has targeted a host of other countries like Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan, using its signature brutality to lure disaffected fighters from other jihadists like the Taliban.

Now, with its claim of responsibility for Thursday’s suicide bomb and gun attacks in Jakarta — which left five attackers and two other people dead — the brutal grouping appears to be getting a foothold in Southeast Asia.

… “He is an active player,” said Joseph Chinyong Liow, an expert on Southeast Asian Islam at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“He has a website which celebrates IS and its successes, and more specifically, he celebrated the Paris attacks.”

Categories:

RSIS / Online

Last updated on 19/01/2016